Day 4: Victorious!

Best day yet. We made sure we were on time for our 9am flight to Victoria, Vancouver Island.

By sea plane.

Flying is always cool, but doing it from the water adds an additional factor of cool. I was surprised how smooth the takeoff was. Barely noticed.

Then, as is the case with small aircraft,  we were able to enjoy the trip from low altitude. The view at 2,500 feet on a clear day from Vancouver to Victoria is amazing. We had excellent views of the islands dotting the river, and right up the coastline of the mainland and Victoria Island.

On the flight over I struck up a conversation with Bill, who turned out to be the manager of Magnolia, a boutique hotel in Victoria. It also turned out that he was an excellent impromptu tour guide. Bill grew up in Victoria and still loved it. The population is around 500,000 - large enough to offer most facilities and services associated with major cities, small enough to avoid most of their vices.

It also has a more temperate climate and less rain. Days were typically no colder than 5-10 degrees centigrade in the winter, in the mid-high 20s in summer, and with 1/3rd the rain of Vancouver. Basically the rain-bearing clouds pass over Victoria, hit the mountains east of Vancouver, and shed bucketloads.

After landing we asked for directions. Bill pointed us in the right direction, and then offered us a complementary breakfast at the Magnolia. It's a beautiful hotel, with a late 19th century aesthetic in keeping with that part of the city, but actually only 12 years old.

We wandered, admiring the architecture most of which has a delightful old-world feel in this part of Victoria, before stumbling across several shops where Emma bought three new dresses. Emma's pre-trip planning included selecting, washing, and ironing four dresses, but glitched at the packing stage. It worked out for the best as all three of her purchases were fabulous, especially the last one we picked up on special from the designer. 

As hoped to find Rebar, the coffee shop we stopped in on our last all-too-brief visit to Victoria. Cake tins along the eaves, plastic dinosaurs on the ledges, an Elvis mosaic and good coffee - what's not to like?

Our major stop for the day was 30 minutes north at the Butchart Gardens. Originally a limestone quarry for a cement-maker, Mrs Butchart, a keen gardener, was challenged by a friend to rehabilitate the landscape in the 1920s.

So she did.

The Sunken Garden in the old quarry is brilliant. With little more than the remnants of the limestone cliffs and a lump of rock sitting in the middle she transformed the setting with magnificently coloured beds of flowers, vines creeping up the walls, trees, ponds, and a spectacular fountain at the far end.

Being a bit of a mad gardener herself, Emma loved it, stealing the camera from me and snapping away.

There are other themed gardens as well, a rose garden, a wonderfully serene Japanese garden designed by a Japanese master gardener and with trees donated by the Emperor of Japan (my personal favourite), a classic Italian garden which Emma adored due to its aesthetic richness and elegance.

We spent over two hours walking the gardens, and could have spent more. It was stunning. One woman who passed by credited the beauty to God's handiwork. I was more inclined to attribute the beauty to 3.5 billion years of evolution and a century of dedicated gardeners, but at least we agree that it was beautiful.

The ultimate highlight for the day was the flight home. I got to sit in the co-pilot's seat.

This was my first time in the cockpit of a flying plane, and I loved it. The pilot offered a passenger to sit up front, and as Emma had the seat in the front of our last helicopter ride she told me to take it. I considered graciously declining for perhaps all of two seconds, then bolted up the front.

I had the full co-pilot experience, short of taking the controls (which would have been a bad, bad idea), looking all pilot-like with my sunnies, cap and wearing the headset. I ruined the look by snapping photographs like a novice tourist, but who cares?

Another extraordinary flight, this time with the setting sun. Bliss vs elation.

After landing (and I can't get enough of landing on water) I turned to the pilot and said, "that was six kinds of awesome". 

Seriously, seriously buzzing for the rest of the night.